Abstract: Writing is one of the four basic skills in language learning. Chinese college students, however, still have problems both in grammar, spelling and in the discourse cohesion. Based on the cohesion theory of Halliday and Hasan (1976), this thesis analyzes the conjunction errors found in non-English major college students’ writings. And by applying the error analysis, this thesis compares the use of conjunctions used in high quality group and low quality group. It also gives teachers some implications on how to improve students’ writing skills.
Key words: conjunction; cohesion theory; error analysis; implication
Chapter I Introduction
To English foreign language learners, writing is a complicated process of thinking, which concerns various factors, such as their foreign language writing abilities, foreign language competence and first language (Du Jinbang, 2001). Among the four basic skills --- listening, speaking, reading and writing in foreign language competence, writing is considered to be the most difficult one (Xu Xiuqin, 2010). According to Byrne (1998:1), from the linguistic view, “we produce a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in certain ways. The sequence may be very short--perhaps only two or three sentences--but, because of the way the sentences have been put in order and linked together, they form a coherent whole. They form what we call a text'.” Writing is the so called text, which can be used to express ideas or feelings and communicate with others.
Chapter II Literature Review
Zhu Yongsheng (1995) does a complement to reiteration in cohesive devices which is Halliday and Hasan's theory. Zhu Yongsheng thinks the concept of reiteration consists of two language phenomenon. One is that the words that belong to reiteration don't belong to the same semantic field, such as ill and doctor. The other is that the words were divided by the way of collocation means, such as dig+garden, bee+produces+honey. That can explain why the cohesive words are difficult to distinguish semantics. Zhang development Delu and Liu Rushan (2003)'s book Discourse cohesion and coherence theory's and Application. It is important material for cohesion and coherence research.Yang Yuming (2004) research the cohesive devices in Chinese students' compositions and analyzed 100 samples. The result is that the frequencies of cohesive devices are not related with the writing quality.
Chapter III Theoretical Foundation
3.1 Cohesion
There are different definitions of this term “cohesion”. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), cohesion is a certain linguistic feature presenting in that passage which can be identified as contributing to its total unity and giving it texture.
3.2 The Classification of Cohesion
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976)'s theory, cohesive devices can be divided into grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. The grammatical one has the subcategory: reference, ellipsis, substitution and conjunction. The lexical one includes reiteration and collocation.
3.2.1Definition of Conjunction
Conjunction is different from reference, ellipsis, substitution. Conjunction illustrates the relation of sentences, functions as a bond to connect sentences in order to express the relation of adjacency them. The purpose of using conjunction is cohesive. Hu Zhuanglin (1994) definition is that conjunction refers to the relation of adjacency sentences. Conjunction can make the readers know the semantic and logical relationship between sentences. The words that connect sentences are usually conjunctions, adverbs or prepositional phrases. Conjunction is divided into four kinds by Halliday & Hasan. They are additive, adversative, causal, temporal.
3.2.2 Classification of Conjunction
1)Additive
Additive is a relationship of coordination and is usually called "and" links. Additives have both positive form and negative one. Simple additives have "and, and also, further(more), moreover, besides, incidentally similarly, additionally". Negative additives are "nor, and...not, not ...neither, neither, etc.". Alternative additives are "or, or else". Some additive phrases are "by the way, on the other hand, by contrast, in the same way, in this way, in other words, that is，I mean, that is to say, what is more, anyway, anyhow, etc." Exemplificatory may be "for example, for instance, thus, to illustrate, etc."
2)Adversative
Adversative illustrates the meaning of contrasting. It is called "yet" links. The items are `yet, but, though, only, but, however, nevertheless'. It means the meaning of following sentence is different from the preceding one,
3.3 Error Analysis
Sidhar (1981) points out that Error Analysis has a long tradition. Prior to the early 1970s, however, Error Analysis consisted of little more than impressionistic collections of ‘common’ errors and their linguistic classification (e.g. French 1949) (Rod Ellis, 1985:51). Error analysis (EA) refers to the study and analysis of the errors made by second and foreign language learners. It developed as a branch of applied linguistics in the 1960s, and achieved considerable popularity in the 1970s. It may be carried out in order to
(i)Identify strategies which learners use in language learning；
(ii)Try to identify the courses of learner errors;
(iii)Obtain information on common difficulties in language learner, as an aid to teaching or in preparation of teaching materials.
Error analysis was therefore offered as an alternative to contrastive analysis. Attempts were made to develop classifications for different types of errors on the
bases of the different processes that were assumed to account for them (Liu Runqing; Wen Xu, 2006: 275).
Chapter IV Research Methodology
4.1 Research Questions
Based on the definition and classification of cohesive device and EA theory that mentioned above, the writer wants to find out the main cohesion errors about conjunction in the composition of Non-English major students, and whether there is a relationship between the using of cohesive device and composition quality. Finally, the writer hope that this research can bring some inspiration in English writing teaching.
(1) What are the main cohesion errors about conjunction in the composition of Non-English major students?
(2) Whether there is a relationship between the using of cohesive device and composition quality?
(3) What are the implications for college Non-English major students?
4.2 Subjects
The sample compositions involved in the research are 30 non-English major students in correction network. They are sophomores.
This study is based on thirty sample compositions written by college students of non-English majors. According to the scores they got in the correction network, these compositions are divided into two groups: high quality group and low quality group.
Chapter V Implications for the Teaching of Writing
The chapter above analyzes the misuse of conjunction in students’ composition and their deficiencies of students’ command of cohesion theory. Since these problems are common in their composition, it gives teachers some implications that the use of conjunction in writing teaching is vitally important. Therefore, in this chapter, the some suggestions will be offered to improve students’ writing quality in terms of conjunction.
1. Improving their awareness of conjunction in writing
Teachers and students all should know that having awareness of using conjunction in writing is necessary. English writing teachers should stress the influence of conjunction. Teachers should notice that, in writing composition, making grammatical sense is not enough. Teachers also should pay much attention to the logical teaching and apply linguistic into their teaching.
2. Doing a lot of training
Teachers should provide students with some systematic training on using conjunction. As shown in this study, many students have no awareness of using cohesive devices in the proper time and proper way. Therefore, teachers should offer some exercises of conjunction for training.
Chapter VI Conclusion
Conjunction is helpful to both teachers and students of college university in writing. This paper researches 30 writing works of non-English majors and classify them into two groups. The thesis indicates that correct use of conjunction in writing is closely related to the quality of writing works. In the teaching of English writing, teachers ought to put more emphasis on conjunction words, and try to raise students’ awareness of using conjunction in writing.
All in all, more and more researches on English writing strategies should be carried out in the future. We should do more thorough study on English writing strategies so as to make more systematical research for the needs of improvement of English writing quality. I really hope teachers guide the students to write their texts by using conjunction correctly in daily work.
Reference
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